Now you can hold your baby before it has even been born

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Published:06:30Saturday 01 August 2015

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Expectant mums and dads are queuing up to get a sneak preview of their babies thanks to a Lancashire firm specialising in three dimensional models of unborn babies still in the womb.

Baby:Boo specialises in 2D, 3D and 4D ultrasound scans - and is now one of the first places outside London to offer parents-to-be a model of their actual baby while it is still in the womb.

Baby:Boo 3D and 4D baby scans in Tarleton. near Preston'A 3D print of a scan

The firm creates a 3D scan image of the baby and then renders it into a 360 degree format and printing it out as a 3D model.

Layla Macmillan, 28, who is married to Andrew and lives in Farington, near Leyland, is pregnant with her fourth baby and has become one of the first people in the North West to experience the new concept.

Layla, who has three daughters Paige, seven, Imogen, five and Autumn, who is nine-months-old, is 32-weeks pregnant with a girl.

And when she heard about the opportunity to have a life sized figurine created capturing her unborn daughter’s features, she couldn’t resist.

It is a bit like the 3D casts people have made of their baby’s hands and feet, except it is a 3D cast of your baby’s face using the features from one of the images from the scan.

Layla Macmillan

Layla, who is a photographer, says she is an impatient person who likes to be organised so she has always chosen to find out the sex of her babies in all of her pregnancies.

And she is amazed at how much technology has advanced - now even allowing her to ‘hold’ her baby before it has even been born.

Layla said: “I first went to Baby:Boo when I was pregnant with Autumn to have a 3D scan and it was amazing.

“When you go to hospital for a scan, it is not personal and you have a tiny screen and you can’t see very much and are only allowed to take one person in with you.